County Visitin'

So I've been at training for a little over a week now and a lot has happened!  Not only have we been learning all about construction and all the paperwork we will be responsible for this summer, we have also had some time for fun things.

On Wednesday, I had "County Visit Day" where I was able to visit Morgan County for the first time!  It was shocking to see the tornado damage in West Liberty and around the county.  And everyone we talked to said that everything looks much better now than before, since they have had about 2 months to do relief so far.  I met with our community contact, which is our biggest resource for finding homes since ASP is new in the county.  They have been collecting applications for us, and should be a useful contact throughout the summer.  Next, we headed to our center (where we will be living and hosting volunteers for the summer).  It's called Morgan Central Elementary School, and it is quite possibly the nicest ASP center I have EVER SEEN.  The building is only 4 years old, and is in pristine shape. There are even skylights!  Our facility manager (who is also principal of the school) is very excited to have us in the area working.  She told us that her house is one of the ones destroyed in the county, and she is currently rebuilding.  Finally, we stopped by the hardware store.  Neighboring counties have used this hardware store in the past, so even though we are new to the county, they are already familiar with ASP!

Center Directors get told their staff one day ahead of everyone else, so I found out my staff on Thursday night.  Yesterday, (friday) we had a huge picnic and a "staff reveal" where us CD's made our staffs do all sorts of crazy things... kind of like an obstacle course in order to finally find out our staff.  I have one returning staff member- Logan from Alabama, and two new staff members- Carson from Texas and Emily from Connecticut.  I'm excited to have 2 boys on my staff again, like my first summer.  And also excited to get to know and work with them!  We have several more days of training, and will be leaving for Morgan Co. on Thursday.

The internet here at Jonesville is pretty slow, but I'll post pictures to my facebook very soon!

Summer 2012 Schedule

Thought I would post my schedule for the summer...

May 17th: Start of CD Training in Jonesville, VA!
May 25th: I find out my staff!
May 31st: Depart for counties (Morgan Co, KY in my case)
May 31- June 9th: Set-up Week
June 10- July 28th: 7 weeks of volunteers
July 29- July 31st: Closing out our county
August 1st- 3rd: Back to Jonesville, VA for Wrap-Up
August 3rd: End of contract

I should have cell service in Jonesville, and if you want to send any mail the address there is :

ASP Jonesville Center
PO Box 250
Jonesville, VA 24263

Not sure yet what the situation will be in Morgan County in regards to cell service, and I'll be finding out the mailing address shortly.  During training I'll be doing a "County Visit Day" to see my county and center, and meet the community contacts, and I should have more info then!

I'm very excited to start the summer, it all just seems a little surreal with the quick turn around from graduation!  Better get back to packing...